Watts to Get New Charter School

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Monday approved an educational foundation’s proposal to create a charter school in Watts that will use public funds to teach public school students on a private campus.

The unique Watts Learning Center is scheduled to open this fall with 120 kindergarten students. It will enjoy unusual autonomy under a state law that permits school districts to create schools with their own charters.

The school will be operated by the School Futures Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization created by John Walton, son of the late founder of Walmart stores.

Walton’s San Diego-based foundation, which he has funded with about $2 million of his own money, is attempting to create up to 20 charter schools in California in pursuit of its mission: to “improve educational outcomes for all students, especially those in low-performing urban areas.”

Walton, a promoter of conservative educational reforms, donated $250,000 to the unsuccessful 1993 statewide “voucher” initiative. It would have allowed families to receive public school money to attend private schools.

Although private sources of operating funds may be sought to run the Watts school, it will function primarily with the same public funding as all other schools in the district.

“We want to show with the amount of money that any public school is entitled to, we can get great results for the children,” said James C. Blew, a spokesman for the school.

In addition to the Watts center, Walton’s foundation plans to open similar schools this fall in Palo Alto and San Diego.

The schools will employ rigorous academic standards and will recruit the most highly qualified teachers, regardless of whether they have California teaching credentials, said Eugene Ruffin, the foundation’s president and CEO.

If the teachers don’t perform, “they will seek employment somewhere else,” Ruffin said.

Leaders of the innovative school said it will be located on leased property near an existing Head Start program. Several sites are being investigated and one will be chosen by Aug. 15, Blew said.

Students will all be graduates of Head Start or similar preschool programs that are directed at children of low-income families. The school will open with a kindergarten class of 120 this year and expand one grade level per year for five years, Blue said. By then the school will have built a campus that it--not the school district--will own, Blue said.

The school will be run by a board of directors. In addition to Ruffin, a former executive with Xerox and IBM, the board includes the leader of a group that is seeking to separate South-Central from the Los Angeles school district. Blew said the board does not endorse a breakup of the district.

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The proposal received enthusiastic support from school board member Barbara Boudreaux, who represents Watts. However, it received a mixed reaction from the teachers union.

Day Higuchi, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, said he is not supporting or opposing the school until he knows whether his union would represent its teachers.

Board member Julie Kornstein did not participate in the 4-0 vote, saying she was concerned about Walton’s motives.

“My feeling is it is a way to get around vouchers,” Kornstein said after the meeting.

Board member David Tokosfky, who also said he had reservations because of Walton’s “Moral Majority” leanings, voted with Boudreaux, Victoria M. Castro and Board President Jeff Horton.

Tokofsky said it appeared that Walton’s group had “taken a step toward the political mainstream” and would “live or die based on whether they have better school outcomes.”

Board members Mark Slavkin and George Kiriyama had left Monday’s special meeting early to meet President Clinton at Mar Vista Elementary School.